NFL Wild Card weekend (and Black Monday) thread

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why they are so married to that short passing game.

Ben and Pouncey both know this is their last home game at Heinz. JuJu probably, too.

They have a lights out young defense, old o-line, old QB, shitty RB, great WRs, meh TE.

They’ll look different next year but the same at the same time and probably battle for the WC again.

 

Ben was really close to 71 passes, which would have been another record.

 

I don’t think Ben can huck it down the field like he used to.

 

If it wasn’t for the second-half of the Colts game, I would be with you 100%. Now? About 75%.

 

You’ll have to run it through Google Translate yourselves.

 

He does something like that damn near every game.

 

Solid.

 

Both of those teams actually started 13-0. I'd give the nod to the Packers, just because they got squashed in their playoff game. The 2005 Colts at least had a chance to tie it at the end of their loss.
You could argue that those teams just had a bad day, though. Maybe even caught a bad matchup against a hot team in the playoffs (both the 2005 Steelers and 2011 Giants went on to win the Super Bowl). I'm not sure I've seen a team in recent memory absolutely unravel like the 2020 Steelers did. The last month has been a train wreck. You can argue that they played one good half of football in a six-week span.

 

As Kareem Hunt was this season.

 

And without losing their QB for the season.

 

I think some people will be fooled by the second half last night, but they shouldn't be. The Steelers were absolutely outmatched for every moment of that game that was competitive. They were blown out in the first quarter, and the Browns simply put their foot back on the gas every time the Steelers got close. Cleveland's defense is a disaster, but the offense took over when necessary in the fourth quarter.

In hindsight, I was clearly wrong about two things. One was the punt at the start of the fourth quarter, as I already acknowledged. Even if they failed, the results would have been no worse than the failure that followed. If they had succeeded, perhaps the Browns would have crumbled, even on offense. The other thing was resting starters last week. Every player who rested did next to nothing until the game was out of reach. Watt had a decent game, but not great. Heyward was invisible. Pouncey clearly had one of the biggest mistakes of the game. Roethlisberger was terrible in the first half. Those guys needed to keep playing, rest be damned, and it showed last night.

The Steelers are facing a major rebuild. Either Roethlisberger is done, in which case he would be a $20 million dead money cap hit, or he will take up $40 million of the cap in 2021. They have no running backs worth starting. The offensive line is old and weak. Pouncey could retire. DeCastro is in decline. Villanueva and Feiler will be gone as free agents.

The defense will lose Dupree. Sutton and Hilton are both free agents. One bright spot is the return of Devin Bush, who was sorely missed from the moment he went down Week 5. Haden also brings a big cap hit, but we saw what that defense looks like trying to cover for his absence last night. The Steelers played way too much zone. The middle of the field was open to Mayfield whenever he wanted it. That was a problem in other games.

The offensive coordinator, Randy Fichtner, needs to go. Teams figured him out way too easily. I'm not sure if Keith Butler actually did a good job covering up massive flaws in the defense or if he really did do a poor job holding things together, but this is the second consecutive playoff game in which his defense fell apart. The calls for Tomlin to be fired are already coming in Pittsburgh, but we know that won't happen. My guess is one or both coordinators will take the fall.

 

The punt decision looks a lot better if Berry pins them inside the 10.